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How present conflict started - explains Nobel Prize winner

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Category: Palestine/Israel
This letter is written and signed by Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter, Jose Saramago, Noam Chomsky and John Berger, it has been forwarded to major newspapers.

The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner - and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis - there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails .

The Palestinian Catastrophe, Then and Now

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Category: Palestine/Israel
On the story we almost never hear about—the Palestinian one—and an anniversary few of us have ever considered

By Sandy Tolan

07/11/06 "Mother Jones" -- -- Under the pretext of forcing the release of a single soldier "kidnapped by terrorists" (or, if you prefer, "captured by the resistance"), Israel has done the following: seized members of a democratically elected government; bombed its interior ministry, the prime minister's offices, and a school; threatened another sovereign state (Syria) with a menacing overflight; dropped leaflets from the air, warning of harm to the civilian population if it does not "follow all orders of the IDF" (Israel Defense Forces); loosed nocturnal "sound bombs" under orders from the Israeli prime minister to "make sure no one sleeps at night in Gaza"; fired missiles into residential areas, killing children; and demolished a power station that was the sole generator of electricity and running water for hundreds of thousands of Gazans.

Israel cannot always rely on US helping hand

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Category: Palestine/Israel
By Tony Judt

By the age of 58 a country – like a man – should have achieved a certain maturity. After nearly six decades of existence we know, for good and ill, who we are and how we appear to others, warts and all. And though we still harbour occasional illusions about ourselves, we know they are, for the most part, just illusions. In short, we are adults.

But the state of Israel, which has just turned 58, remains curiously immature. The country’s social transformations – and its many economic achievements – have not brought the political wisdom that usually accompanies age. Seen from outside, Israel still comports itself like an adolescent: confident of its uniqueness; certain that no one “understands”; quick to take offence, and to give it. Like many adolescents, Israel is convinced – and aggressively asserts – that it can do as it wishes; that its actions carry no consequences; that it is immortal.

Loans for rose red leather - and brass necks

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Category: Political
Dear 'Today' re 17-03-06

My Lord Haskins: 'Looks a bit dodgy to me!' (He should know)

The citizens: 'Bribery is bribery. There is no other name'


And we do not forget - for instance - that Dr Chaitanya Patel OBE BM FRCP (?formerly/presently of Westminster Health Care Ltd) was advising Messrs Blair, Milburn, Reid, Hewitt etc on 'reform'** of the National Health whilst his loan to the rose perfumed party of government lay in a special account which Lord Levy might know about (Michael Crick - Newsnight 16-03-06). That he had a direct financial interest in the expansion of private hospitals had no bearing of course on the advice he gave. The irony of the firm's title is no longer lost.

**Reform - in Blairese: dismemberment, evisceration (as at the University Hospital of Stoke on Trent)

Israeli-Palestinian Impartiality Review

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Category: Complaints Regarding BBC Bias

Israeli-Palestinian Impartiality Review,

By email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. BBC Governance Unit,
Room 211,
35 Marylebone High Street,
London,
W1U 4AA

24th November 2005

To the panel,
Ms Tarazzi, director of the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza and one of the very small minority of Christians still left in the remnants of historic Palestine, said this to me. It is a truism of course. "Dr David. If there is no peace in Palestine, there will be no peace in the Middle East. If there is no peace in the Middle East there will be no peace in the world". I repeat her message often but preface it with "If there is no justice in Palestine, there will be no peace in Palestine .....".

If there is to be justice where none exists, truth must be heard.